Tam girls win MCAL in dramatic fashion

Well, I just finished writing up the story for Friday’s MCAL girls soccer final between Branson and Tam and i can only hope I was able to do the game justice in the space available to me in print. It was truly a classic game, easily one of the most memorable soccer games I’ve covered in my three years with the IJ. I want to give props to all the players who made this such a memorable contest. You all put on one hell of a show. Five goals, two Branson comebacks and two Tam responses, and incredibly timely goals by both Branson’s Caroline Dagley and Tam’s Julia Raney were just part of the story.
I remember a 3-2 regular-season game between Redwood and MC I covered a couple seasons ago that was pretty special, but there was no MCAL title on the line, no overtimes, no golden goal. This game truly had it all. For those of you who missed it:

Alicia Blose gave Tam a 1-0 lead in the first minute but Kelly McFarlane equalized for Branson in the 53rd minute. Julia Raney scored what, at the time, looked like the game winner in the 70th minute but Branson showed incredible resolve to tie the game with just 2 minutes left on a free kick by Caroline Dagley. Try as she might, Tam goalie Gabby Guaiumi couldn’t quite keep the ball from crossing the goal line.

In overtime, Branson had a pretty good chance to win when JV call-up Alana Snow got behind Tam’s defense but Alyssa Miller was able to take her down before she got into the penalty box. Miller earned a yellow card but possibly saved the game for Tam on that play. Dagley’s free kick from about 20 yards out didn’t have as much on it as her earlier effort did.

In the end, Raney won the game in the 97th minute, taking a shot from 30 yards out, just beyond the grasp of Branson keeper Jess Cohen.

“Kudos to (Raney),” Branson coach Tom Ryan said. “She’s got a pure striker’s mentality. There are not many girls who’d take that shot and not many who have the leg to hit that.”

The Branson girls battled into double overtime for the third time in four days and deserve a lot of respect for battling fatigue for that long. That’s 300 minutes of soccer and the pressure of two penalty-kick shootouts in just four days. Again, as it was against Redwood on Wednesday, after the first half you really couldn’t tell which team had the tired legs on Friday.

But this day belonged to Tam. The Hawks’ core is made up of a huge junior class that entered the league together as freshman three seasons ago as the most-hyped class in many years. When I was talking to coaches before that season to determine what the season preview should be about, every single one of them was raving about Tam’s incoming freshmen. That group consists of Blose, Guaiumi, Julia and Catherine Raney, Maddy and Hannah Boston, Alyssa Miller and Jessica Heiges. I hope I didn’t forget anyone.

In the end, I opted to write about the rivalry between Redwood and Marin Catholic, figuring I didn’t want to put too much pressure on a group of freshmen who hadn’t played a league game at the time. The young Hawks did so well that season, easily acquiring the mantle of best up-and-coming team, that I had no choice but to make them the season preview their sophomore season. Competing with the likes of Redwood, Branson and MC isn’t easy and Tam held its own last year, despite being the only one of those “big four” teams not to win a title of some kind.

You had to wonder when this group would fulfill the expectations placed upon them and its safe to say that, with a regular-season title and a postseason title to their credit this year, this team has most certainly accomplished that now. Julia Raney, however, sees one more hurdle for the Hawks to cross before they can say that.

“I don’t think we have fulfilled (expectations) yet,” Raney said. “We want to get NCS next week. We want to get all three.”

It’s been a while since any MCAL team has done that. Perhaps University managed that feat in the BCL West but Tam assistant coach Mike Carbone can’t remember an MCAL team pulling off the “triple crown” since maybe Marin Catholic during the early part of this decade.